At this rate, perhaps I should call the series A Donne Every So Often, or maybe A Donne A Day Most Days.

Here’s one of Donne’s most famous lyrics, “The Sun Rising.” It’s a different twist on the “aubade,” or lover’s song of mournful parting at the break of day. In this poem, Donne has no intention of leaving. Instead, he abuses the sun for a couple of stanzas, then opens into a celebration of love that’s still so intense and intimate it can take your breath away, four centuries later. It certainly leaves me breathless, just as it did the first time I read it almost three decades ago.

As you’ll hear in my commentary, there is a possible dark side to all this apotheosis. Even though Donne and his lover and the sun are all warm, cozy, and basking in the afterglow (both physical and metaphysical), the very completeness of the love raises a small anxiety on the horizon, a cloud no bigger than a man’s fist. I’d say I’m reading too much into the small phrase “nothing else is,” except that Donne knows full well the cost of true love: he married for love but without asking the father’s permission. Since the father was his patron, by the standards of the time Donne had committed a particularly grievous kind of treachery. Donne will later on find the cost of true love to be even dearer than he had imagined in his disgrace. But that’s another blog entry.

For now, cuddle up with your sweetie. All is well. Here’s “The Sun Rising,” by John Donne.

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